


The Kissing Bridge

by LesbeanLatte



Category: IT (1990), IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Secret Santa, Secret Santa 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 05:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12952728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LesbeanLatte/pseuds/LesbeanLatte
Summary: Eddie and Richie both find themselves alone on Christmas Eve.For @ noowestayandgetcaught on Tumblr aka @ Val_Creative on ao3Merry Christmas, Rie I hope you like this <3





	The Kissing Bridge

“We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy new year!” 

The carolers howled on the street corner and Eddie slipped into an alley to avoid them. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Christmas carols, but he was decidedly not in the mood for them right now. In fact, he wasn’t in the mood for much of anything. He wanted the night to swallow him up and let him disappear and maybe reappear in a few years when he could gain some perspective. 

He felt like a blow had been delivered directly into his midsection and he couldn’t quite breathe despite having been aware for years not that he very much did not have asthma. The awareness that it was all in his head didn’t seem to do much to help the tight feeling in his lungs, like someone was choking him from the inside. Snowflakes swirled around his head, and his puffy jacket, yellow Pokemon hat, and bright red wool mittens didn’t do much to protect him from the biting cold. 

He would have been very much into stopping and listening to carolers, maybe even joining them in an off-key singing voice, almost any other night. This evening, however, he found himself fighting back the urge to scream at the top of his lungs. 

So, he jogged into the dark alley (“filled with germs, and needles from hobos shooting up,” whispered a voice in his head that sounded like his mom’s) his light up sketchers casting shadows on the grey brick walls of the buildings on either side of him. 

It was a silly thing to be so worked up over, really. So he had a fight with his mom. So what? So the fight was on Christmas Eve – again – so what? Everyone fought with their parents. Most people fought with their parents a lot, and the vast majority of people sometimes fought with their parents on holidays. 

Eddie Kaspbrak was not most people. 

Eddie and his mom had gotten along amazingly well, perhaps insanely, nonsensically well with hardly a sharp word between them, for the entirety of Eddie’s seventeen years on earth so far. 

There had been one other time when he had fought with her though, hadn’t there? 

“They’re gazebos! They’re bullshit!”

The words, which were almost funny in their childlike ignorance about “placebos” echoed in his mind. He hadn’t had a choice then, of course. It had taken Beverly, and he hadn’t had any choice but to go and help. He hadn’t done that – stood up for himself – for his own sake. He had done it for Beverly’s sake, so it had been different. 

Eddie was great at being brave for other people, especially when it came to the losers - any of whom he would have given an arm or a leg for - but it was an entirely different story when it came to being brave for himself. 

Why couldn’t he have just let it drop? She didn’t want him to go to Stan’s holiday party for two reasons, neither of which were reasonable but both of which Eddie wished he could ignore for the sake of having a peaceful holiday. 

The first reason she didn’t want him going to the holiday party was that it was just that, a “holiday” party. It wasn’t a “Christmas” party and therefore her little boy couldn’t go. Never mind that Eddie had seen something much worse than any Christian devil with his own two eyes, had felt the presence for real evil when he was beneath Derry, and now he wasn’t sure what to believe in. 

The second reason she didn’t want him to go was because he was “sick.” Because of course it was. He was always sick. Her sickly, helpless, fragile little boy. Yeah because someone who was as fragile as she imagined him to be could have helped beat It in the sewers. Eddie thought with a sense of satisfaction that he hated himself for that if it had been her in the sewers she would have fainted straight away and been devoured by It. 

“You’re sick Eddie, remember? You have to stay home, and get better. You have to take your medicine.” 

He cringed, leaning against the icy wall of the brick building boxing him into the alley, remembering her crooning voice and how she had stroked his face in a way that was meant to be loving but felt more like possessiveness, like he was only a doll for her to play with. 

He wasn’t sick and he knew it. 

If he was sick, it was in his mind. Years of convincing him that he was always sick had fucked with his perception of sickness and physical well-being so much he could hardly tell the difference between a bruise and a broken bone, a harmless scrape and a gaping wound, a slight cold or a horrible case of pneumonia. He had been told too often that he was sick, or hurt, or dying. He had spent too many nights in the emergency room, or the “mergency” room as he had called it when he was just a kid. 

Part of him wanted to go back and say he was sorry, that of course he wanted to stay home and get better and that must have been the fever talking, never mind that his temperature had been 99 degrees, only one degree higher than it should have been. 

He wanted to apologize just to get them talking again, just to go back to the normal quiet peace in the Kaspbrak home, so that they could have a nice Christmas and she could make him pancakes like she did when he was a kid. Maybe they could finally watch the new Home Alone movie, and maybe she had gotten him a Nerf gun even if he was a little old for one and he could play guns with the losers in the barrens like they did when they were kids. 

Another part of him didn’t ever want to go home to her and her lies and manipulations ever again. 

It was very hard to tell which part of him was stronger, but right now it was the part that didn’t want to go home, or maybe he knew that if he did he would only start another fight and he didn’t want or need that. 

Something in his fanny pack beeped. 

Eddie unclipped the fanny pack from his jeans and pulled out his Pager. He opened the message, which was from Richie. “Meet me in the town square.” 

Eddie was skeptical. Shouldn’t Richie be having a blast with the other losers at Stan’s party? Besides, Richie hated the town square. Richie didn’t say much about it (a rare feat) but Eddie could tell the big ugly statue of Paul Bunyan freaked Richie out. He had a feeling it had to do with the events over the summer when they had beaten It, but he never asked Richie about it, just like Richie never asked him why he still carried his aspirator and took his pills. 

Eddie hurried down the alley and jogged the few blocks to the town square where an enormous fake Christmas tree overshadowed the Paul Bunyan statue, which was wearing a giant Christmas hat. How they had ever gotten the hat on him was a mystery, but Eddie didn’t really care anyway, he just wanted to find Richie and make sure he was okay. Beyond the Christmas tree was a fenced off area which had been temporarily made into an ice skating rink for the holiday season. 

He looked around until he spotted Richie, whose coat was open to show his overalls with one strap hanging down over a plaid shirt. 

Richie was sitting on a bench facing the Christmas tree, and Eddie walked over to meet him, sitting beside him on the bench. 

“Hey,” he said. “Why aren’t you at Stan’s party?” 

“The party is over,” Richie said. “It’s almost midnight Eds.” 

Eddie shoved Richie a little, rolling his eyes. “Don’t call me Eds Richie,” he said. “You know how I hate it.” 

Was it really that late? His mom would definitely be worried. He shook the thought off. Let her worry, for once. 

“Right-e-o Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie teased. “Let’s go ice skating.” He stood up and held out a hand to Eddie, who didn’t take it. 

“Richie…” he trailed off. “Why aren’t you at home?” 

Richie didn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I just didn’t feel tired.” 

Eddie looked a little closer at his friend. “So, you drank too much at Stan’s party and need to sober up before you stumble home and your parents kill you?” 

“I’m sober,” Richie insisted. Eddie raised his eyebrows. “Mostly,” Richie said with a wink.

“Whatever,” Eddie said. “Yeah let’s go ice skating.” 

“Hold on,” Richie said. “What about you? Why aren’t you home, Eds?” 

This time, Eddie didn’t even protest the pet name. “I had a fight with my mom,” he admitted. 

There was an awkward pause before Richie grabbed Eddie by the arm and practically dragged him to the ice skating rink. 

“Come on,” Richie said. “We’re having a good Christmas regardless of our stupid parents.” 

“Agreed,” Eddie said. 

Richie jumped the fence first, and Eddie scrambled over after him. It was only once they were standing inside the fence on the ice that a problem seemed to occur to both of them at once. They shared a look of horror that quickly turned into amusement. 

“We don’t have any skates,” Richie said. “Wow I’m stupid. This doesn’t work very well without skates.” 

“Come on,” Eddie grabbed Richie’s hand, sliding on his sketchers towards the middle of the rink, enjoying the light from his shoes reflecting on the ice. “We’re here, we might as well have some fun anyway.” 

“You’re an idiot,” Richie said, rolling his eyes, but he allowed himself to be pulled out onto the ice. 

Hand in hand they skated (or rather slid on their shoes) around the rink a few times. At one point Richie stumbled and started to fall but Eddie instinctively slipped a hand around his waist, catching him. For a moment, Eddie held Richie suspended like that, mesmerized by Richie’s deep brown eyes and ringlet curls which peeked out from under his hat, which was covered in band pins from Hot Topic. 

“Never let go Jack,” Richie said in a high-pitched voice, imitating Kate Winslet. The two had seen the Titanic together when it came out in theaters, and it wasn’t uncommon for Richie to quote lines from the movie at every opportunity. 

“Whatever,” Eddie muttered, yanking Richie back up to a standing position. 

They slid around a few more times until they were both panting, and they ended up leaning against the fence, out of breath and flushed from the cold. 

They both hopped the fence and ended up walking aimlessly down the deserted, dark streets past shops with Christmas lights that had been turned off hours ago, and houses with all the lights off where kids were probably pretending to sleep but keeping one eye open in the hopes of seeing Santa Claus. 

They ended up at the kissing bridge, the sound of the Kenduskeag rushing beneath them and a few snowflakes starting to fall around them. The moon was almost full and it shown on the water, illuminating the spot where Eddie and Richie stood on the bridge. There was silence between them for a few moments, whether because they were both tired and absorbed in their own thoughts, or because they were both distracted by the graffiti under the bridge, some of which was cool – like the caricatures of the band members of The Cure – and some of which was gross – like the jet black words reading “Burn all fags.” 

“Hey Eds,” Richie said. Eddie turned and saw the Richie had an uncharacteristically serious expression on. 

“Yeah?” he asked. 

“Sorry to hear about your fight with your mom.” 

Eddie shrugged. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’d rather spend Christmas with you anyway.” 

As soon as the words left his lips Eddie felt his cheeks burn. He glanced at Richie to see that instead of looking amused or ready to make fun of him, Richie actually looked touched. 

“Yeah,” Richie said. “Me too.” 

Before Eddie could process Richie’s response, Richie’s arms were around his neck and his lips were pressed against Eddie’s. 

Despite the bitter cold, Eddie felt himself fill with warmth which seemed to start in his toes and spread upward. He hugged Richie tight, pulling him closer to himself, and kissed him with a kind of desperation. 

When they finally parted lips, Eddie kept his arms around Richie’s waist and pressed his forehead to Richie’s. 

“Hey Eds,” Richie said. 

“Yeah?” 

“Merry Christmas.” 

“Merry Christmas, Richie.”


End file.
